The Obesity Epidemic

[dr_mabeuse]

In West Africa today, beauty pageants feature contestants who would be considered markedly "obese" in the US; many of the young women who represent the pinnacle of female beauty in these cultures weigh more than 14 stone. In this regard, contemporary West Africa is quite similar to the US in the 1890s, when the 14-stone actress Lillian Russell was considered the undisputed beauty of her time. [1 stone=14 lbs, right? So 14 stone=196 lbs.--dr.M.] Historically speaking, far more cultures have mirrored contemporary West Africa and America in the latter half of the 19th century than have resembled the US today, where an almost unprecedented ideal of thinness reigns supreme.

A fascinating article on the "Obesity Epidemic" and how it's another crisis in interpretation of statistics and the imperatives of grant-writing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1200549,00.html

---dr.M.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Marilyn Monroe was a size 14...she would be a cow by today's standards. Where is Botticelli when you need him?

 

[Guest]

 

[lucky-E-leven]

He's got a studio at my house and I'm the model.

You sexy beast!

~lucky

 

[Guest]

Mab., that’s a very good and insight full article, thanks. I think the fat Americans who are at risk health-wise are those that eat crap. One can be overweight, even fat, but healthy. I can easily believe the anti-fat research is based on lucre and even racism. It’s been my experience that Hispanic and Black men don’t care for ‘skinny’ girls, they like a full-sized woman. Europeans seem to appreciate a real body too.

I’ve been comfortable with my body for a long time and only feel ‘fat’ when I see what the media offers up. I was the same weight for decades then gained some, plus had my shape altered after menopause. I tried to lose some pounds but could not. I researched menopause and realized my metabolism had changed (slowed down), and if I wanted to lose just a couple pounds I’d have to simply not eat.

There does seem to be an epidemic among American children re.weight gain, and I attribute it to junk food and irresponsible parents who give in to the demands of kids who are marketed to love crap. Kids today also don’t exercise the way my generation used to, they play vid games and watch TV vs. spending hours playing outside in physical games.

Even ballerinas a hundred and less years ago would be thought fat today. Anna Pavlova would not be engaged by the NYC Ballet.

Perdita

Edited to add this photo of Mathilde Kschessinska (1872 - 1971), a prima ballerina assoluta from the Russian Imperial ballet. She was also mistress to Nicholas II before he married Alexandra.

"fat" ballerina

 

[MathGirl]

That's my goal: Obesity. I'm determined to pork up to 6.447 stone by the end of summer.
Reubenesquely,
MG

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I read the article while eating handfuls of cheese popcorn,,,,,,and I felt no guilt.
It was a very interesting read, thanks for posting it Doc. So many valid points.
Remember when models had tits?
How about the Hour glass figure?

any one recognize this chick?

 

[Guest]

 

[SummerMorning]

I think the actual problem isn't how people look [that's one for the media and the myth of thyn] - it's that people are unhealthy. Like others have said - you eat shit, you'll probably be [in] shit.

Crude and rude, but that's probably almost all there is to it.

Oh, and exercise - physical exercise - good.

 

[SlickTony]

I blame photography. There's a lot more of it around than there used to be, back in the days when photographs took more than an hour to develop, the polaroid hadn't been invented yet, let alone the digital, and you had to put some mental energy into working your camera.

It's also true that I am seeing far more really, really, really fat people--of the kind that are shaped like a Horton sphere, who have sleeves of flab on their arms, skirts of flab around their loins, and who have to ride in electric carts in the store because they are truly too fat to get about nowadays than I ever did when I was coming up.

However, everybody knows that the camera makes you look heavier. I hate seeing myself in photos because while I look perfectly normal IRL, with muscle definition on my arms and legs, I feel like I look like one of those too-fat-to-get-about people in a photo.

 

[KarenAM]

We Americans live in a weird culture. We're simultaneously the most obese culture in history (20 years ago I remember far, far fewer obese people than I see today) and yet if you flip through Cosmo you see girls with their ribs showing, looking like they just got out of a forced labor camp.

The stick-figures are suppsed to be beautiful, but I can't see how any man would think so. And how many times have we heard about the obese constituting yet another persecuted group?

The ideal, I think, lies in the middle. Ignore advertisements, eat your veggies like your mama told you to, and exercise regularly. And try to be nice, because nice people are the most beautiful of all.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Marilyn Monroe was a size 14...she would be a cow by today's standards. Where is Botticelli when you need him?

"A cow" is exactly what Louis B. Mayer DID call Marilyn Monroe.

But that was Louis B. Mayer, of whom Samuel Goldwyn claimed:

"The only reason so many people attended his funeral was they wanted to make sure he was dead."

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The stick-figures are suppsed to be beautiful, but I can't see how any man would think so. And how many times have we heard about the obese constituting yet another persecuted group?

High fashion is a caricature of fashion, and high fashion models are a grotesque caricature of women.

Models have to have an unattainable shape, otherwise anyone could be one and fashion--which is essentially a never ending race to be in style--would come to an end. The consumer culture is driven by creating chronic dissatisfaction and then associating your product with the solution to that dissatisfaction, and we've gotten very, very good at that. Our models therefore have to be unattainable ideals.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

This is a good site on 'the media'. This quote is from a page on body image. P.

"We don’t need Afghan-style burquas to disappear as women. We disappear in reverse—by revamping and revealing our bodies to meet externally imposed visions of female beauty." - Robin Gerber

Media Awareness

 

[gauchecritic]

I've always had a problem believing that fat is unhealthy. Until I was in my middle to late twenties I weighed no more than 11 stone (154 pounds) and at 5 feet eleven inches tall, I was stick thin. I could eat all day long and gain no weight. I'm 2 stone heavier now and it's all round my waist.

Some people are thin, some people are fat.

With regard to modelling, as I understand it, the healthiest shape(least associated with early mortality) for a woman is the one most hated. Large hips and thighs and small upper body.

As for cancers which were mentioned in the article, I have yet to read a study that takes into account such things as: heavy traffic, drug combinations, lifestyle, wealth (or lack of) and though I still can't find the research after 20 odd years the x-ray output of television sets.

A personal rant of mine; If a doctor suspects or diagnoses cancer in a patient, the very first confirmation tool they use is an x-ray. What's that about?

Gauche

A friend of mine put me off skinny women in my youth, he told me it was like fucking a bucket.

 

[Liar]

A personal rant of mine; If a doctor suspects or diagnoses cancer in a patient, the very first confirmation tool they use is an x-ray. What's that about?

Um... maybe that that you can see cancer on an x-ray photo?
Sorry, I just don't understand the question.

 

[gauchecritic]

For the very reason that x-ray technicians stand behind lead panels. X-rays are linked with causing cancers.

Surely the last thing you want to subject an unquantified tumor to.

Gauche

 

[SlickTony]

A friend of mine put me off skinny women in my youth, he told me it was like fucking a bucket.

Well, now, I wouldn't go that far. My husband is 6'1" and weighs 140+/-. In certain positions I do have to reposition him when his hipbone is digging into my thigh or something like that.

 

[SeaCat]

Okay, I'm truly confused now.

The argument about obesity comes from it's unhealthy aspects. You have to realise there is heavy or fat, and then there is obese. There truly is a difference. here is an example.
Ignoring the stick figure model wannabe's. (No I wouldn't want to have sex with one either. All bones and sharp abgles. Besides I would be afriad I would break them in half.) You then look at the majoity of people. Yes some of these are a bit heavy, but they can climb stairs and enjoy a normal healthy life style. Their hearts don't have to work overtime to pump the blood through their systems. Then you have the truly obese.
These are the pople who can't climb stairs. They cant walk, They require two or more airline seats. (Yet still only pay for one and the poor slobbo who has to sit next to them gets maybe half a cheeks worth of seat if they're lucky.) These are the people who when you look at them have rolls of fat. These are the ones whose arms are the size of a normal persons leg. These are also the ones who are mor prone to suffering from High Blood Pressure, Congestive Heart Failure, Breathing Problems, and other ailments.
In some, not many but some cases this is caused by actual medical problems. Hyperthyroidism is one of them. Too many cases come from sloth and over eating. (I'm not talking about the occasional bing eating or party snacking here folks. I'm talking about the person who consumes my body weight of food in a week, and does nothing but sit.)
Unfortunately there is an epidemic building, at least here in America. The cause of this is two fold. The first is the prevalence of crap being eaten. The second is the lack of guidance for the kids. Unfortunately they tie together. Mainly it comes down to a choice by the parents.
Should the parents be bothered to watch what their kids eat and drink? Should the parents take the time to make healthy meals and limit snacking? Should the parents see to it their kids get excersice? Heaven forbid, not in America. Here it is all too often where the parents leave their kids to eat what they want. (OH we can't make him/her eat healthy. The Psychs say that might make them unhappy children.) Here they allow their kids to come home and meld with the T.V. of Video Games. (Oh we couldn't do that, it might make them angry. Besides, then we would have to move our asses off the couch and play with them. No it's much better they park in front of the tube with us and snack.) And here in America we certainly can't make the kids go outside and play. (Nope not going to make them do that. There's too much dirt and germs out there. Not to mention I might have to get up and supervise them, and you know how if they're left unsupervised kids will get into all kinds of trouble. Not to mention there's all sorts of sick people out there and who knows what they might try to do.)
Then again here in America we don't make the kids study either. And our tests are designed around makingthe kids feel good about themselves. (So what if they can't make change. isn't that what cash registers are for? Why should my kids learn to read and write English, they know enough of it from speaking with their friends in the hood. {Have any of you noticed how Graphic Novels are taking off?} And why should they learn another language? Every one else in the world should learn ours. Oh and by the way, those teachers who we refuse to pay anything now have to raise our kids for us. We brought them into the world why should we do anymore for them?)
Oops, sorry about the rant. You hit a raw nerve tonight. Had a patient today, weighed in at four hundred plus pounds. She came in for Cardiac and respiratory problems. She is a whole twenty five years old. As i was wheeling her up to the unit she was asking me about who to talk to for food. When she found out I was going to be one of the people taking care of her she complained that she couldn't have a male working with her. I might, "Take advantage of her and maybe rape her." (Cold shiver down my spine at that one.) She then inhaled three Snickers Bars while we were hooking her up to the monitor, while commenting that she was suffering from an overactive gland. We see this all too often in the hospitals.

Cat

 

[SlickTony]

Geez! what a dumbfuck. Rape her? "Ma'am, I wouldn't be able to find it!"

I thought it was hypothyroidism that caused weight gain, and hyperthyroidism that led to a person being all skinny and nervous-jervous and exophthalmic, and in the days before iodized salt, perhaps have a goitre?

I don't entirely agree with the necessity of always having to supervise kids when they're out playing. When I was coming up, and for all I know, cat, we may be of an age, it was common for many parents, even SAHMs, to push their kids out the door of a summer morning and not expect to see them again until the fireflies and the bats were out and it was time to come in and eat supper anyway.

Parents don't operate this way anymore; they're scared to. Not merely the inner city parents whose kids might have to stay under windowsill level when the bullets start to fly, but the suburban parents who have heard too many stories about child abductions.

 

[shereads]

I read the article while eating handfuls of cheese popcorn,,,,,,and I felt no guilt.
It was a very interesting read, thanks for posting it Doc. So many valid points.
Remember when models had tits?
How about the Hour glass figure?

any one recognize this chick?

She had no arms. How did she eat?

 

[snooper]

Modern American Beauty ...

... looks like this?

 

[OldnotDead]

There is an author I saw last week on one of th shows out touting a book about how healthy has a lot less to do about weight than about fitness. Points out that sedentary, skinny people are actually higher risk folks than so called 'overweight' that get lots of exercise.

I tried to do a search and could not find it, but I thought he made a lot of good points.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

She had no arms. How did she eat?

She was a well kept woman.

 

[MathGirl]

I soundly resent my tax dollars going to pay for electric wheelchairs, medications, etc. for people who are too grossly obese to work and take care of themselves. There should be some sort of body fat threshold that disqualifies people from public assistance.
MG
Ps. I like my abgles the way they are, thank you.